SSE has said it remains on course to make more than £1.5bn in profit this year.

The profit comes despite the fact that the energy supplier has lost some 250,000 gas and electricity customers.

In its latest interim management statement, the firm said the number of its household accounts in the UK and Ireland fell from 9.47 million to 9.22 million in the last nine months of 2013. The average consumption of gas and electricity used by SSE customers also fell by 9.5% and 4.3% respectively.

Despite this, SSE forecast an 8.8% increase in its full-year profit and also expects a dividend increase for the year.

Continuing, the company said that while it expected to deliver a pre-tax profit of more than £1.53bn for the year, its five-year capital and investment programme from 2015 was likely to be lower than the £1.5bn-£1.7bn range it has invested each year since 2010.

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SSE Chief Executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said: "Despite what is clearly a difficult business environment, the overall performance of the company has been solid in 2013/14 and the efforts of employees, shown recently in the response to the Christmas week storms, have been excellent.

"It is encouraging that SSE is on course to deliver real growth in the dividend and increases in adjusted earnings per share and adjusted profit before tax.

"The operating environment is not expected to be any easier in 2014/15 but we have a well-balanced range of businesses and a good range of assets and we are determined to maintain our operational focus and financial discipline for the benefit of customers and investors."

However, Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) has responded to the statement, criticising SSE's decision to increase payouts to its shareholders. The move comes just weeks after the firm increased fuel bills for its customers.

CAS spokesperson Sarah Beattie-Smith said: "At a time when so many households are still struggling with high bills and public confidence in the energy companies is so low, it's very disappointing that SSE have chosen to put their share-holders ahead of hard-pressed consumers.

"Their customers will find it hard to understand why their bills recently had to increase yet again in order to fund this dividend for share-holders."

(JP/IT)